Hey Bike Owners: Spinli...

It’s been about a month and a half since peer-to-peer bike rental service Spinlister launched in San Francisco and New York . Since then, the New York-based startup has been busy trying to attract bike owners to list their bikes and improve its inventory, while also trying to improve the overall experience of using its site. Despite only being available in two cities and for six weeks, the startup has already attracted a fair amount of interest from listers and renters. It has an inventory of about 400 from bikes from individuals, and more than 2,000 from bike rental shops listed. And it’s seen rental interest from all over the world, with renters from six of the seven continents. (Antarctica is the only holdout.) That’s translating into cash for those who list bikes that otherwise weren’t getting ridden. In the first six weeks, 25 percent of listers have completed a rental, with 25 percent of those receiving multiple rentals. Those folks have made an average of $50 each so far — and if your bike is popular, you can pull in upwards of $100 a week, depending on pricing according to CEO Will Dennis. But just like Airbnb and Getaround before it, Spinlister still has a lot of work to do to educate consumers about peer-to-peer rentals, and to reduce friction in the process. As a result, it’s put up new resources on its website, including handy guides for renting and listing bikes on the site. The goal is to decrease fulfillment times and increase the likelihood that both renters and listers respond to one another. Spinlister also has general guidelines for those who haven’t been on a bike in a while, as well as city-specific resources for New York and San Francisco . For those who are still unsure if they should list their bikes, for fear of theft or damage, the startup has also introduced the Spinlister Guarantee, which will insure the fair-value price of a bike for up to $5,000. That should set some folks’ minds at ease. What’s next for Spinlister? The company expects to expand to several new U.S. cities over the next six months, with plans to expand internationally soon after that. It’s also hoping to go mobile and roll out an iPhone app. It has raised $225,000 in seed funding and is in the process of hiring an iOS developer and looking for a Rails developer as well. For those of you who will be in New York City for TechCrunch Disrupt and wish to skip the cab line and bike around town instead, Spinlister is offering up $20 credits to the first 25 people to email TCDisrupt@spinlister.com and sign up for an account. Happy biking!

Instagram Aftermath: It...

Editor’s note: Adeo Ressi is founding member at TheFunded and The Founder Institute . Follow him on Twitter @adeoressi . Q: What does the Instagram acquisition mean for startups? A: A LOT. At the close of 2011, there was a lot of uncertainty for startups. Stock market fluctuations, underwhelming talent acquisitions (“acqui-hires”), and structural investment problems threatened the prospects for startups. But what a difference a few weeks can make. The passage of crowdfunding legislation in the US coupled with the $1 billion acquisition offer of Instragram, signals the beginning of a full startup boom. In preparation for the good times, venture capitalists have started to raise new fund money at their pre-crash highs. Two and a half years ago, Mint.com was acquired for $170 million, and everyone thought that was an amazing deal following the great recession. Now, a fledgling company with a small team gets acquired for $1 billion. My best guess is that it is about to get crazy. And, only fools sit on the sidelines. Many strong and older entrepreneurs that I know are wealthy today because they made intelligent decisions during the dot-com bubble of the late ’90s. Success was not easy then, and it will not be easy now, either. But, the likelihood of a great outcome is much higher in a boom. There are a lot of newly minted entrepreneurs that pursue their dream company in a half-hearted way. You may tinker with your idea while toiling at a day job. You may refuse to put in the work required to recruit the best talent. You might be afraid of launching an imperfect product. Or, you may put a mediocre effort into fundraising. However, if you want to take advantage of a boom cycle and reap the rewards, you need to slide all of your chips on to the table. You need to go all in. And, you need to play smart. Every move that you take and every bet that you make needs to have the best odds of success. You can’t enter the game too late, either. If what I predict happens, very soon you will start to read about more and more crazy deals. When “crazy” becomes the new normal, the opportunity will have already passed you by. So, let me get really specific. As an entrepreneur, you have a decision to make. Ask yourself, “is this my boom?” If your answer is “yes,” then you have a lot of work to do. Look around you. If everyone that you deal with is not top-notch, from cofounders to vendors, fire them immediately and bring on the best. Now. Right now. Seriously. Now. To really win during a boom, you need to play at the top level, and the winners in every boom always have the best talent. Always. Is it your time? Is this your boom? [ image via flickr/V1LL14N ]

Time Out New York Launc...

Time Out New York is making a big leap into the digital world today, says Aksel van der Wal, who’s president of Time Out North America and chief operating officer of the Time Out Group. Specifically, it’s launching its first iPad app, an updated iPhone app, and a new e-commerce model for all of its properties. As a product, the new iPad app sounds the most interesting. (I wasn’t able to try it, and also I don’t live in New York, so I’m going off the company’s description.) Time Out specializes in reviews and listings for arts, food, entertainment, and more, and now the iPad app personalizes the experience. Apparently, every time you select content in a specific category, that increases the likelihood that the app will present you with similar content in the future. In six weeks or so, Time Out plans to improve these personalization features, so that content that’s been viewed or liked by similar users is also recommended. The personalization is based on technology from LikeCube, a semantic analysis company that Time Out acquired last year . More broadly, van der Wal characterizes this as major milestone in Time Out’s shift from the print business into “more of a digital direction.” And that includes settling on a digital business model — the website now allows transactions, so if you read about a great Broadway show or a hot new restaurant, you can buy tickets or reserve a table. Time Out will also be offering discounts and deals. (Advertising will play a role too. In fact, MasterCard will be the first global sponsor of the iPad app.) Apparently the new direction can be laid at the feet of Oakley Capital, which acquired a 50 percent stake in Time Out London in November 2010, followed by a majority stake in New York (which operated independently) in May of last year. Time Out says unique visitors to the website have increased 92 percent since the deal, from 967,000 in May to 1.85 million in February. Time Out London will get a similar revamp eventually, van der Wal says. I will update the post with a link to the iPad app as soon as I get it. In the meantime, you can download the iPhone app here .

Identity Theft Protecti...

Identity theft protection company LifeLock has raised $100 million in new equity funding from existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners, Goldman, Sachs & Co., Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Symantec Corporation and River Street Management. Additional investors included Industry Ventures, Institutional Venture Partners, Keating Capital, Inc. and Wasatch Advisors’ venture capital arm CrossCreek Capital. This brings LifeLock’s total funding to $178 million. LifeLock says that the new funding has been used towards the acquisition of ID Analytics , which develops a technology that predicts the likelihood of identity risk associated with an application for credit. Not only does the company evaluate for risk, but similar to LifeLock, also provides consumer protection services against identity theft. The company partners with financial organizations and telecommunications companies. The company says that LifeLock and ID Analytics generated combined revenue in excess of $200 million in 2011. ID Analytics will continue to operate independently as a wholly owned subsidiary of LifeLock. Todd Davis, LifeLock Chairman and CEO said in a statement: “This acquisition will further strengthen our core consumer identity theft protection business and gives us a unique opportunity to deliver the next generation of identity risk management solutions…This acquisition materially strengthens LifeLock’s market positioning…By combining ID Analytics’ enterprise solutions and proprietary data capabilities with LifeLock’s brand leadership and consumer expertise, we see a company poised for significant long-term growth.” You may remember Davis from LifeLock’s ad campaign, which displayed his Social Security number on the company’s website and billboards, as a way to promote LifeLock’s service. His identity was then stolen 13 times and the company was slapped with a $12 million fine for deceptive advertising.

Sprint CEO: iPhone Data...

No one is more excited about the iPhone’s availability at Sprint than CEO Dan Hesse. And it’s no surprise either, seeing that the carrier is investing at least $15.5 billion over the next four years just to offer the device to customers. That said, Hesse has been tooting the iPhone horn as much as possible, taking special note of its efficient use of data. He even went so far as to say that the iPhone’s data handling may quite possibly keep Sprint’s unlimited data plans alive longer than expected. According to Hesse, the iPhone is better at picking up WiFi signals than Android devices, making it easier for users to jump off their 3G connection onto a network. This is, of course, great news to any network as it unloads a good deal of traffic. In the same vein, Hesse said that Apple’s iPhone app requirements result in less data traffic from apps, as they tend to employ the network less than other platforms’ apps. “One of the beauties of carrying the iPhone is it extends the period of time and increases the likelihood of us maintaining unlimited data longer because it uses our network so efficiently,” said Hesse in an interview with Forbes . However, if smartphone adoption continues to grow (especially at the rate it’s growing now), unlimited data will cease to be a feasible option for any carrier. Crunchbase SPRINT NEXTEL Company: Sprint Nextel Website: Launch Date: October 27, 1999 IPO: NYSE:S Sprint Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative technologies, including two wireless networks serving almost 49 million customers at the end of the second quarter of 2009; industry-leading mobile data services; instant national and international push-to-talk capabilities; and a global Tier 1 Internet backbone. Learn more